Tech city start-up Cloud.IQ wins £2m venture funding

Bridges Ventures, the venture capital organisation controlled by Sir Ronnie Cohen, has invested £2m in cloud.IQ, a cloud-marketing start-up located among the cluster of technology and new media companies close to Silicon Roundabout in East London.

Cloud.IQ's service enables companies to manage marketing across text, phone, email, web, mobile and social media. The new investment will fund the rollout of the technology to support a customer acquisition drive, as well as the recruitment of staff to support that growth.

Cloud.IQ was founded by James Critchley and Paul Phillips. Critchley also founded Ad.IQ, a mobile marketing agency, in 2001 after leaving advertising agency Ogilvy. He established Cloud.IQ in February this year with Phillips, formerly head of technology for Ogilvy One in London.

While the company was only founded in February, its platform has been in development since 2002 and operated by Ad.IQ, until it was spun-out earlier this year. The company claims that it has powered more than 12,000 campaigns and delivered 40 million interactions between organisations and individuals over the past 10 years.

Cohen is known as "the father of venture capital in Britain". He founded Apax Partners in 1969, making it one of the UK's first venture capital firms.

The company grew slowly at first, but expanded rapidly in the 1990s, to become not only the UK's largest venture capital company, ahead of 3i, but one of just a few global venture capital firms. By the end of 2007, it had invested in some 340 companies in various stages of development.

Cohen founded Bridges Ventures in 2002. It has invested in such businesses as Simply Switch, a price comparison website, and Halo Insurance.

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